Reclaiming Tiananmen: the Politics of Space Within Tiananmen Square, 1989
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History in the Making Volume 9 Article 7 January 2016 Reclaiming Tiananmen: The Politics of Space within Tiananmen Square, 1989 Amanda Castro CSUSB Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/history-in-the-making Part of the Asian History Commons Recommended Citation Castro, Amanda (2016) "Reclaiming Tiananmen: The Politics of Space within Tiananmen Square, 1989," History in the Making: Vol. 9 , Article 7. Available at: https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/history-in-the-making/vol9/iss1/7 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the History at CSUSB ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in History in the Making by an authorized editor of CSUSB ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Reclaiming Tiananmen: The Politics of Space within Tiananmen Square, 1989 By Amanda Castro Abstract: The word Tiananmen in any context now brings to mind the 1989 protests and their goals rather than evoking thought of a center for Chinese Communist Party Power. The 1989 Tiananmen Square activists chose to alter their surroundings in two distinct ways in order to create a space that would serve as a tangible representation of their feelings as a whole. The first way in which they chose to alter the Square came at the start of the protests when students systematically transformed the Monument to the People’s Heroes in the middle of the square to memorialize Hu Yaobang’s death. The creation of the statue named the “Goddess of Democracy” was the second way in which protestors reclaimed the space in the Square. This paper will analyze the ways in which protestors altered Tiananmen Square and will describe how the use of public space by the protestors represented their emotions, political aims, and a distinctive new generational culture. Beijing’s Tiananmen Square was the center of political and social discontent during the spring months of 1989. The need for social and economic reform in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was at the center of this discontent. The nonviolent attempts by protesters to attain these goals in the face of an unwavering government defined these protests. The political center of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and a symbol of Communist power, Tiananmen Square erupted with demonstrators, political posters, and megaphone speeches. 63 Reclaiming Tiananmen “Student Protestors Rallying during 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests,” Courtesy of http://www.wqxr.org/#!/story/how-beethoven-rallied-students-during- tiananmen-square-uprising/, 1989. The 1989 Tiananmen Square activists chose to alter their surroundings in two distinct ways, and these alterations became centers of action throughout the span of the movement. This paper analyzes the ways in which protesters altered Tiananmen Square, and how the use of public space by the protesters represented their emotions, political aims, and a distinctive new generational culture. Through these actions, the protestors reclaimed this space within the political center of the Chinese government as their own; through their determination and persistence, they were able to alter the meaning of the word Tiananmen. The word Tiananmen in any context now brings to mind the protests and its goals, rather than evoking thoughts of a center for Chinese Communist Party power. This type of reclaiming of space had never been done by way of other protests in PRC history. The square has now become more representative of the people of China than originally intended by its political leaders and city planners. The PRC was originally intended to evoke feelings of patriotism and nationalism, but now it conjures feelings of pride for the protestors that once filled the space. The protestors of Tiananmen Square demanded change, and although it was not granted, they are now a part of Chinese history, much to the despair of the CCP. The Tiananmen Square protests are a case study in which public history can become a lens in which to analyze its events. 64 Amanda Castro Governments and citizens alike can use public space to grapple with current events and significant events from the past. A public space encourages public interaction with the subject matter and can have shifts in interpretation with the passing of time. “Space is a reality that endures,” writes Maurice Halbwachs. “We recapture the past only by understanding how it is, in effect, preserved by our physical surroundings.”1 Government agencies and the common individual can use these types of spaces to create an atmosphere that evokes certain emotions or addresses certain events in various ways. Public spaces have systematically become spaces where public memory of an event is established. The political sphere at the center of a government commonly funds projects that create a national image, usually created exclusively by people who work within or for the government. A political system can use public spaces to manipulate stories told about their collective past. Michael Kammen, Pulitzer prize-winning professor, analyzed government commemoration of national heritage and suggests that, “…societies in fact reconstruct their pasts rather than faithfully record them, and that they do so with the needs of contemporary culture clearly in mind – manipulating the past in order to mold the present.”2 The tendency to reconstruct the past to mold the present becomes problematic because government funded spaces become engrossed with political satire and myth making. Since its creation, the CCP has focused on retaining its power with condemnation and censorship thrust upon their citizenry. Throughout Communist ruled China, public spaces are areas where images, words, and symbols are carefully chosen to glorify the CCP cause, with little attempt at allowing for spaces where the people of China’s voices can be heard. Tiananmen Square has been a rallying point for many other protests in PRC history. Among the first is the May Fourth Movement of 1919. Similar to the protests of 1989, these protests were spurred by college students from Peking Universities and surrounding schools. One of the major causes of this movement was demonstration against the Versailles Treaty, which set the stage for the Nationalist and Communist Revolutions. The movement’s opponents were “traditionalists whose antimodernist 1 Chang-tai Hung, Mao's New World: Political Culture in the Early People's Republic (New York: Cornell University Press, 2011), 236. 2 Michael Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture (New York: Vintage Books, 1991), 3. 65 Reclaiming Tiananmen took the form of a pedantic and obscurantist attachment to Confucian Orthodoxy.3 The May Fourth Movement follows the same trajectory of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in that it pushed the agenda of political and social change. The protestors, throughout the May Fourth Movement, used the public space within Tiananmen Square in typical ways that are associated with protests, such as hanging banners and marching down main streets. This movement did make a strong political statement, but did not drastically change the politics within the space the way that the 1989 protests had. The ways in which the Square changed throughout the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests, shed light on the protestors feelings of frustration and hope, as well as their goals. The way they collectively viewed the actions of their government is palpable in these transformations of the space. The two transformations of the square illustrate the protestors collective attempts to gain acknowledgement and self-awareness through the alteration of their surroundings. These changes are often engrossed in collectively symbolic meanings and can affect every person, past and present, differently. The first way that they chose to alter the Square came at the start of the protests when students systematically transformed The Monument to the People’s Heroes in the middle of the square to memorialize Hu Yaobang’s death. The second alteration of space came when the protestors chose to alter The Monument to the People’s Heroes on April 16th in order to commemorate his life, adding signs, white cloth ribbons and wreathes to the existing monument; most wreathes were removed overnight by CCP officers. The transformation of The Monument to the People’s Heroes began after Hu Yaobang died on April 15, 1989 due to a heart attack. This transformation was symbolic in memorializing Hu Yaobang, whose death caused the initial march to Tiananmen Square in 1989. This change of setting reflects the emotions that the initial group of university students from around Beijing, who began to march to Tiananmen Square at midnight of that night, felt upon hearing of the death of Hu Yaobang. They had an emotional connection with the ousted political leader and mourned his loss. When they chose to alter The Monument to the People’s Heroes on April 16th in order to commemorate his life, and most of the 3 Charlotte Furth, Reflections on the May Fourth Movement: A Symposium. May Fourth in History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 59. 66 Amanda Castro wreathes were removed overnight by CCP officers, these actions by the government prompted thousands of more students to march to Tiananmen Square and begin protesting their government’s actions. The slogans shifted from “Long Live Hu Yaobang” to “reject autocratic rule” and “long live democracy” within days of his death.4 Hu Yaobang’s death caused a similar reaction from the public as the death of the Premier of the PRC, Zhou Enlai, in 1976. The protests, which erupted after the death of Zhou, were similar to that of Hu since the citizens of the PRC felt that Zhou had worked to better their lives, especially while under the leadership of Mao Zedong. During the last years of his life, Zhou worked to stabilize the nation after the effects of the Cultural Revolution became evident.